Dollar Tree Canada Review

Whenever I rave about Dollar Tree in Canada, people look at me with puzzled looks about how excited I am to go there. Dollar Tree offers fantastic value for brand name products and has become one of my favorite stores to frequent. I think it’s because I grew up in a frugal immigrant family and we were taught to be bargain hunters. There wasn’t much left over with three kids and my parents sponsoring their parents along with relatives to Canada. We were always at sketchy malls and flea markets versus the fancy shiny malls that I visit today.

Dollar Tree is an American store which sells items for $1 USD in the US or $1.25 Cdn in Canada. Its headquarters is located in Chesapeake, Virginia and they operate 13,600 stores throughout North America. According to their website, its stock is trading at $85 USD today. They also recently purchased the Family Dollar chain for $8.5B USD to expand their empire.

My family first discovered Dollar Tree while cross border shopping in Buffalo, NY. For some reason my mother was really obsessed with buying toothpaste at the time. Anyhow, what attracted me were brand name quality items such as Disney toys/coloring books/puzzles for the kids and fantastic event planning stuff. If you are having a party with a Mickey Mouse theme for example, you can grab everything here – party cups, banners, cupcake sleeves, candles, loot bags, loot bag toys, puzzles, stickers, pens, etc. They even have helium balloons which they fill in store too! All for $1.25 each!

The Dollar Tree Canada stores carry less items than Dollar Tree US stores and do not carry frozen groceries. Compared to its main competitor – Dollarama, Dollar Tree is pretty amazing since the $1.25 Cdn items they carry may cost $2-4 Cdn at Dollarama (examples – Betty Crocker brand containers, reading glasses, scarves). However, Dollarama (Canadian company) has over 1000 stores all over Canada versus the mere 100 Dollar Tree stores spread across five provinces.

Typically my Dollar Tree haul will include lots of children books (Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse, Avengers) and toys, however, today my shopping was interrupted by my Viking husband who came early to pick me up and drag me out of the store. He is the total opposite of me and strongly dislikes shopping.

My purchases today included: books, Disney kid socks, Trophy peanuts, Arizona ice tea, scrapbook tape, Clearasil acne cream, Betty Crocker muffin mix, Nissin cup noodles, Loacker chocolate, index cards and mini picture frames (large picture frames same price, but I needed small ones for wallet size pics).

Dollar Tree also has a lot of scrapbook stuff and seasonal items (Christmas, Valentines, Thanksgiving).   After a holiday is over, they put their seasonal items on sale, so if you are near one of these stores you could get a box of Christmas cards for $0.50. If you are a parent, I highly recommend this store for random kid things because they sell licensed products which won’t break the bank! Now go to the Dollar Tree website and find a store near you for some happy bargain hunting!